Niimi Taiga hadn’t realized at the time.
Between another bullet piercing his vest and into his body and everything becoming blurry shortly after, he didn’t realize when he turned around to see Yuzuki holding the discharged gun, that the bullet had lodged into the back of his vest. He remembered feeling confusion, as he touched the blood on the front of his vest, a different bullet barely missed his heart. Right before he finally collapsed onto the carpet, he realized that there were two bullets. Blood poured out from his body, chaos ensuing as the police force bursted through the door.
Niimi recalled looking for his true assassin even as the room spun. He used the last of his energy to look up only to spot a dark blurry figure from far away. He couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman; the reflection of the window made it extra difficult to see, only roughly making out a figure and a rifle before everything turned black.
Everything happened so slowly, yet it all ended so fast. His anger, his revenge, his grand plan.
Was his sister going to die in vain afterall?
*
*
*
Musashi Saburo held his wife in his arms, breathing a sigh of relief that it was all finally over. They turned to leave as they watched their final kidnapper get zipped into a black plastic body bag before realizing their sister was gone and the thought of Niimi Taiga's corpse swiftly escaped their minds.
Two paramedics lifted the body bag onto a stretcher, wheeling it out for transport. They nodded and confirmed to Detective Honjo that there were no longer signs of life and moved out. She had no reason to suspect otherwise despite not having examined the wounds herself.
*
*
*
Niimi Taiga was very much alive.
When Niimi came to, he blinked groggily several times before realizing the darkness wasn’t caused by his own consciousness blanking out, but rather he was stuck in something. He scratched at the tarp above his face before a man unzipped it, revealing nothing but a masked face.
An ambulance?
“Good morning.” The man said dryly in an unsuccessful attempt to be funny.
Niimi tried to say something, but his throat was bone dry and no words would come out. He turned his head to the other side and a second man sat there with the same masked expression.
“It’s your lucky day.” The man continued, “You’re free to go.”
As though on cue, the vehicle came to a slow stop. Niimi still had no idea what was happening. He clutched his hastily bandaged wound as he struggled to sit up, nearly rolling off the stretcher falling onto the floor but the two men seemed detached and did not care at all. It became obvious they were not paramedics, but it didn’t matter to him. He only needed to live long enough to avenge his sister.
He reached the door before turning around for a split second, panting in a half whisper, “What are you going to tell the cops?”
“Suspect escaped custody.”
“Why are you helping me?” He couldn’t help asking, suspicious of the situation.
“We do as we’re told.”
It was a good enough answer for Niimi Taiga. He pushed open the heavy ambulance doors, grunting as every step he took pulled on both of his wounds. As soon as he exited, the ambulance left his sight. He still thought it was strange, but wasn’t complaining. Niimi looked around, still clutching his wound that had begun to bleed again. His escape was unfruitful as he found nothing but shipping containers by the bay.
Maybe they weren’t far from Yokohama afterall.
Niimi finally stopped in his tracks when he realized he was leaving a bloody trail and that he had to slow down the bleeding somehow or else he would bleed out before he even made it out of the yard. Turning the corner into a tight alley between two tall stacks, he slumped onto the ground, his breathing turning short and sudden. He tried to muster the energy to produce a makeshift bandage, but he had already expended all his energy making an escape. Against his best effort, everything quickly went black again.
*
*
*
He woke up again to the sound of his ringtone. Except it wasn’t his phone at all. It also wasn’t where he passed out. He blinked a few times to register his new surroundings, but the hazy yellow light was bright in his eyes as he dug around his pocket for the phone.
“Hello?” He pushed the phone to his ear, hoping it could provide some semblance of an answer to everything.
“Niimi Taiga.”
It was a man, and he knew his voice sounded familiar.
“You must be an important man to someone.”
“Who are you?” He finally croaked, his throat drier each time he woke up.
“Yamato Koichi.”
Niimi knew he sounded familiar. It was the blue oni himself. But wasn’t he in prison after the last heist?
“Surprised?” Yamato laughed, “I’m as surprised as you are.”
He replied, “Someone paid good money to break me out, and in exchange I was to break you out. And this was the only way to get you out.”
“Why are you telling me this?” His vision finally cleared up and he realized he was on an operating table, a makeshift ratchet one but nonetheless there was a metal tray of sterilized surgical tools that gave it away. He shuddered, wondering if he was going to be harvested for organs.
“Because I’m also interested in your value.” He seemed genuinely interested in what Niimi knew about this, but ultimately disappointed,“But it seems you know even less than I do.”
Before Niimi could ask another question, he ended the conversation, “Anyways. Let’s work together in the future should our paths cross again. I like your style.” With that he hung up immediately, making his own grand escape.
As the line cut out, Niimi dropped the phone onto the floor, once again expending more energy than he hoped. When he tried to move, he realized his feet were zip-tied to the table. He struggled against it as hard as he could before fading out of consciousness again. He came back to a few times, but nothing changed even though he would kill for a sip of water.
But this last time he woke up, something was different. There was a man standing over him. Another man who he was sure he didn’t know. He flinched, getting defensive out of instinct until he saw the man was in a white robe and wore black wire glasses over a surgical mask.
A doctor?
“You’re awake.” were the first words he registered before he realized the man had taken the liberty to undress him down, so far as removing the bandaging from his previous bullet wound.
“Who…are you?” It was hard even getting three words out.
“Someone who can help you.” The man didn’t even look away from his task at hand, his answer nothing short of matter of fact.
“Who…are you?” Niimi repeated, feeling like his throat was on fire at this point.
“You talk too much.” He set down the large metal tweezer in his hand and picked up a syringe with half a mind to tranquilize him.
“Wait–” Niimi stopped the surgeon and despite the man’s short temper, he could feel that this procedure was significantly less painful than his last with Musashi Yuko. This man knew what he was doing and seemed to have access to some kind of anesthesia. Even in his groggy state, he knew he could bite his tongue for a few minutes if it meant he could stop bleeding to death.
In a matter of minutes, the mysterious doctor had already dug out the bullet and begun to work on his stitches. He wasn’t sure if he was awake for the whole process, but the man was efficient with the sutures, finishing in what felt like less than ten minutes. Niimi closed his eyes for a minute, feeling a small sense of relief but when he opened it the man had disappeared. He tried to get up, and while he was struggling the man reappeared.
“Stop moving.” He approached the table and shoved a glass of water to Niimi, “Drink this.”
“What do you want with me?” He was hesitant to take the water despite how badly he wanted it.
“Just drink the water and shut up.” The man shoved the cup to Niimi again and took a seat next to the surgery table, which he now realized was a makeshift ambulance stretcher in what looked like the inside of a shipping container.
“You hired the blue oni to break me out?” After a sip of water, he got straight to the point.
“So? Would you rather die before you avenge your sister?”
So this man knew all about him, and he became even more curious what he possibly wanted from him. He had time to come up with the last elaborate revenge scheme, but in the end he was nothing other than a cab driver.
“She deserves justice .” He insisted. His voice was still raspy, “I loved her…”
Niimi wasn’t sure why he bared his emotions to a strange man, but he supposed this man did save him after all.
The man scoffed mockingly, taking Niimi by surprise, “You say you love her…what do you even know about your sister?”
The memory of his sister was the closest thing to his heart – his softest spot – and nobody was allowed to taint that.
“Keep her name out of your filthy mouth.” He climbed up and held a surgical knife to the man’s face, as close he could while being bound to the table. His hand was shaking, but his point remained. Even if he used his last breath, he would make sure the last thing he did was keep his sister’s name clean.
The man stood up, pressing inward against the threat, testing Niimi’s patience. He thoroughly did not believe Niimi would take him down without finding out the extent of everything he knew first. The Niimi Taiga he knew about was much smarter than that.
Once he was on the edge of the table, the man leaned over, “Or else what?” His patient who he brought back from the dead was barely holding it together, his lips pale as a sheet of paper despite his tough front.
He pulled a gun from under the table, cocking it against the injured man’s forehead, pressing him until he was flat on the cold table again, “I took the bullet out of you. I can put it back in you.”
Seeing as he was at a massive disadvantage, Niimi dropped the knife, and the metal clanged as it hit the floor of the container.
The man retracted the gun as soon as Niimi dropped his weapon too. The man continued, “Let’s talk about you.”
He sat back down, “How much do you even know about you? ”
The man posed an interesting question. This was never about him – why was he interested in him ?
“Tell me your name first.” He wasn’t sure what kind of game this man was playing, but he needed to regain control of the conversation.
He looked Niimi in the eye for far too long, and Niimi wasn’t sure what he was hoping to gain out of his eyes.
“Matsumura.” He said after a long pause, “Hokuto.” His demeanor softened unexpectedly.
“I don’t trust you, Matsumura.”
“You have a weird way of saying ‘Thank you for saving me.’”
“Let me go.”
Matsumura Hokuto pushed his glasses up and retired the white robe, rolled his sleeves up and untied his patient’s feet from the metal bed, “I’ll untie you, but you have to hear me out.” He wondered if a softer approach would work better with this shell of a man.
Niimi looked at Hokuto reluctantly, but ultimately agreed. He had nowhere to be; in fact he had nowhere to go. Being a fugitive wasn’t quite part of his revenge plan. Suicide by cop was the only ending he had envisioned for himself at the end of it all. He still wanted Musashi Yuko dead, but now that his grand scheme had been foiled he needed to rethink matters. Surely, having an ally couldn’t hurt, he thought.
Niimi sat up after regaining mobility, rubbing his ankles which were red and raw from struggling against the zip ties that bound him to the table. Hokuto stood on the side, trying to unravel the mystery around his involvement.
“You’re not Niimi Taiga.”
“What?” He replied instinctively. What was he trying to say?
“You ever wonder why you and your sister don’t look remotely alike?” Hokuto continued, “You’re adopted.”
Niimi scoffed, realizing this man was sounding more and more incredulous by the second.
“You have a twin.”
Niimi wanted to write him off as crazy, but he found himself hesitating. It was crazy, but he’s always had this strange feeling. Since he was a kid, he knew he had an unidentified bond with someone out there. His sister teased him that it was his soulmate, but if he had a twin he didn’t know about, then this all made sense.
“Your twin is dead.”
He felt his heart sink, in ways that he cannot explain. He always thought the massive emptiness in his heart was caused by his sister’s death, but maybe – just maybe – the death of his twin caused their connection to die. And it caused the hole in his heart to grow even bigger. It caused the anger in his heart to fester deeper.
“My…twin?”
Hokuto knew he finally had Niimi’s attention, and he smiled for the first time talking about this twin of his. Niimi wasn’t sure what to make of the smile. It was bittersweet, and there was a deep but subtle sadness in his voice talking about the twin he never met. He could see Hokuto’s shoulder slouch downwards and his eyes looked down after he caught a glimmer of what appeared to be tears.
“His name was Jesse.” Hokuto looked back up at Niimi.
He knew it was wrong, and he tried so hard to keep his emotions at bay, but Niimi Taiga was a splitting image of Jesse Lewis. He wasn’t Jesse; he could never be Jesse, but maybe just for a second – Hokuto could find a small bout of solace lying to himself that Jesse was alive in front of his eyes.
“You…” Niimi knew; it was obvious at this point, “You loved him, didn’t you?”
This time Hokuto deflected, he had a purpose here. There was work to be done.
“Jesse has unfinished business. You need to finish what he started.” He was firm.
Hokuto tried his best to put himself back together, and he held up his gun to Niimi once again, holding it so tight his knuckles turned white.
“Why should I help you?” Niimi Taiga was still gripping with the fact that deep down, he knew Matsumura Hokuto wasn’t lying. He always had a feeling there was more to him than he knew, even before his sister died.
But why did his sister lie to him?
What was so terrible about the truth surrounding his birth that she had to take it to the grave?
“What if I said this was your sister’s dying wish?” Hokuto was prepared for Niimi to fight against his will.
“You knew her?”
Hokuto nodded, “She worked with us.” He continued, “There was so much about her you didn’t know.”
He seemed to soften up again, “So if you want to avenge her death, I am telling you right now. I am your best bet.”
Matsumura Hokuto seemed so convincing. He sounded absolute.
Maybe the pain meds were finally wearing off or maybe it was the overload of information hurting his brain, Niimi felt his body begin to scream in pain again. He tried to get up; he tried to refuse help from this man. He had his own ways and especially after his last experience, the last thing he needed was to trust an ally who would only end up betraying him. He had his own methods to finish whatever it was that he started on his own.
But Niimi Taiga failed.
He stumbled onto the floor, but taking a step felt like walking on clouds. Two steps and he fell over. Hokuto swiftly caught him in his arms this time. It was instinct, Hokuto couldn’t help it — not when the man looked like a splitting image of Jesse.
“...What do I need to do?” His voice was barely above a whisper.
“Jesse Lewis.” Hokuto said, but even saying his name made his heart twinge in pain, “From today on, you are Jesse Lewis.”
“Okay.” He breathed as the last of his consciousness fades, collapsing into Hokuto’s arms entirely.
“I got you, Jesse.”
Matsumura Hokuto had his own agenda to avenge the death of his beloved Jesse, but no matter how he denied it, some part of him still had a tiny secret, a small will to pretend Jesse was still alive.
Even if he knew Niimi Taiga could never be Jesse Lewis, it hurt him too much not to try.
Welcome back, Jesse.